Red Right Hand (8 page)

Ashtoreth crumpled on the soiled mattress. Locks of greasy hair hung over her face. She didn't brush them aside as she brought the broken stem of glass she still held up to her cracked, chapped lips. She stopped, one eye squinting through her lank hair at the crack pipe. It was empty.

A tear shimmered, spilling out and tracking down the dirty cheek of the goddess.

I felt sorry for her. Even after Seeing her true form and knowing what she was … I couldn't help it.

Pity drove through me in a quick stab, making me move forward. “You said she could point us on our way. Can we get that over with?”

The Man in Black turned. He smiled his shark-toothed smile. “Ah, Acolyte, so eager to run into the fray. Yes, let's get this over with.” He pointed at Ashtoreth. “Do you know why I have come here?”

Ashtoreth shook her head, crack pipe clenched in her hand. “You are hunting your kind. What you have done fills the Void with screams. But as you have said, I am not of your ilk. You can't be hunting me. I have nothing to do with you or your kind, elder god.”

The Dark Man sat on the edge of the bed. His coat rustled. Ashtoreth tensed, shying away like a dog that's been beaten. “But, little goddess, you do have something I need.”

Her voice was a hoarse choke. “What could that be?”

“You have the ability to seek out those who desire, and my brethren desire this world more than anything. They lust after it with everything they are.”

Ashtoreth looked away. “I can feel their appetite.”

“I want that ability.”

“You know I cannot grant you my gifts, Son of Azathoth.”

“No, little goddess,” the Midnight Man said with a smile, “but you can give them to my Acolyte.”

 

12

“W
HOA, WHOA, WHAT?”
My hands were up as I took a step back, making distance between us. “I don't want another gift.” The lines cut into my palm throbbed. “And I damn sure don't want another Mark.”

No. No way did I want anything else added to me, cut into me, or done to me. I'd had enough of that.

Nyarlathotep stood in front of me without moving, inches away from my outstretched palms. His coat rustled, whispering out to caress my hands. It was soft, like the first fur of a newborn pup, the silk of an infant's hair.

He looked down at me. “You can only be Marked once. This gift will be a relic of Ashtoreth that will marry your Sight. It will allow us to hunt our enemies.”

I pulled my hands away from the coat. They stuck, just slightly, as though I were pulling them from a bucket of paraffin.

I didn't want the gift.

“She has the gift; just bring her with us,” I said.

The Man in Black laughed. “She is a whore in her heart, unfaithful and untrustworthy. She will not do for my purpose.”

Ashtoreth said nothing at the insult.

Daniel bowed. “I would gladly bear the gift, Master.”

Nyarlathotep ignored him, still staring at me expectantly. “The gift must be used with your Sight or it is worthless. It is the job of an Acolyte, not a minion.” The Man in Black's face softened. His voice dropped to a low, seductive purr. “This will not hurt, Charlotte Tristan Moore. You will feel no pain, but it is necessary that you do this.”

“Stop using my full name.”

The weight of his stare fell on me, pushing against my will. So much had been done to me and around me that I wanted to just quit. To lie down. Hopelessness, that old familiar feeling, tickled the base of my mind. I just wanted this over with. Only a few hours ago, my life had been okay. I'd settled into living on my own. I had a boring job that didn't kill my soul. I was out of piss-ant, middle-of-nowhere Beaumont, Kansas, away from the knowing glances and pitying looks that never let me forget what had happened. I'd found a new therapist and a new martial arts school. Whole months had gone by without a panic attack.

And there was Daniel.

Until earlier tonight and the thing he had done, he'd been my first male friendship since … well, since. I'd taken strength from the new relationship. It was something I had wanted to explore further. I wanted that part of myself back, the part that had been stolen from me so long ago, and I wanted it to be with Daniel. Earlier tonight had just been too soon, too sudden, too … much.

At the time I'd been angry and hurt, but standing in that room I thought it might all have been a misunderstanding. If what he'd said earlier was true, and I believed it was, our conflict could be fixed after some time, some sleep, and some talking. We could be okay.

I wanted that life back.

Life before this train of weirdness had crashed into my night.

Life before chaos gods and Marks and black magick.

Do what you have to do. You can handle this. Get to the other side. You're a survivor, you've proven that.

And apparently if I didn't do this, the world would end. Literally.

“Screw it.” I sighed, giving in. “Okay.”

The Man in Black nodded and stepped aside.

Ashtoreth held out her arms. “Come to me, my child.”

“I'm not getting on that bed.”

That I will not do. No way in hell.

Ashtoreth giggled. A disconcerting sound, something that should come from a schoolgirl instead of an ancient Goddess of Whores, it scraped a raw nerve in my ears. “You are smarter than you appear, dear. Now stand close while I fetch your present.”

The words sank an ominous feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. I glanced over my shoulder. The Man in Black stood impassive, obsidian eyes glittering beneath a drawn brow. Daniel gave me a reassuring smile. He mouthed the words
I'm right here
.

It actually made me feel better.

Then I turned to the bed.

Ashtoreth dug the jagged end of the broken crack pipe into her own arm, the blackened, brittle edges leaving a gash. The skin peeled open, gaping wide as it split, revealing a black and empty void inside. Cold spilled from it, drifting through the air like a breeze from the grave. I couldn't tear my eyes away, staring in horror at the eldritch depths inside the wound. A black so deep it wasn't even a color filled it, the utter darkness of the space between stars.

Alien.

Terrifying.

Ashtoreth reached inside the wound, scabbed knuckles slipping deep, twisting obscenely, and disappearing to the wrist. I watched her face as she fished around inside the wound. Her dark eyes rolled back in their sockets, eyelashes fluttering. A hollow moan broke free inside the goddess's chest, slipping out of a mouth gone slack and loose. Ashtoreth shuddered in pleasure.

I was caught between revulsion and fascination.

Ashtoreth's arm twisted, muscles flexing in her forearm. Slowly she drew her hand out; it slipped free with a moist sucking noise. She fell back on the mattress loose and sprawling, a lover spent from a night of passion. She held a circle of metal, gold highlights around its circumference gleaming with moisture in the candlelight.

She lolled her head over toward me, voice slurring as she spoke. “Lean forward child. Accept your gift.”

I tilted my head nearer to the Goddess of Whores. Tension sang along my spine with the movement. I didn't want to get closer. The ring in Ashtoreth's hand looked harmless, a simple circle of metal that might have been iron save for the strange tinge and hue of the metal, like bronze accumulating patina for a millennium. Its surface was smooth and clean. In the center, a dirty green round orb on a disc the size of a pigeon egg sat like a fat spider in a web. Ashtoreth moved it toward me.

I leaned away, wary. “What is that?”

“Stop fighting every damn step, Acolyte. It is infuriating.” The Man in Black's voice was a jaw-clenched growl.

I looked over my shoulder. “So far, accepting things from you people has sucked big-time.” I held my hand up, palm out. “See? No pun intended.”

You don't like it, pick another Acolyte. Oh, that's right, you said you can't.

Nyarlathotep's face twisted into a deeper snarl.

Ashtoreth spoke, her voice gone all smoky and seductive. “Look at me, child.” I turned from the Dark God to the Whore Goddess. She dangled the circlet from her fingertips. “This torc is not a Mark. This is a talisman, an object of my power. It's a tool you can use or not. Remove it when you are done with the need of it. It will not harm you.” She said it with a low, throaty purr, mouthing the words she spoke as though they were obscene. It tugged something deep inside me. That something I'd felt for the first time only recently.

I looked over at Daniel. He watched me closely.

I remembered my promise.

I reached for the torc. My fingers closed on it, curling around the metal, pressing it against the incised skin of my palm. It hummed in my grip, vibrating with a charge of power that made the magick in my blood sing.

It wanted me to put the torc on.

“What do I do with it?”

“Slip it over your head, child. It is meant to be worn about your neck.”

It was smaller than my skull. I lifted it to my head.

This is going to look like a tiara.

The second the metal touched my scalp, it expanded, pushing against my fingers, sliding over my head like the collar of an old T-shirt until it lay against my collarbones. It was heavy, pressing down in a hard line. The metal went chilly, singing cold across its surface. Gooseflesh raised on my skin.

Here it comes.

I braced for the pain.

Nothing else happened.

I let loose the breath I had been holding, let my fingers drop away.

The torc shrank against my throat.

Choking me.

My fingers scrabbled, trying to dig underneath. Tight. Too tight. I couldn't find purchase. Black fireworks burst at the edge of my vision. Flashing in fast and staying, peppering their way inward, turning the world dark a little at a time. I spun, my narrowing gaze falling on the Man in Black. He stood tall and impassive, staring down at me.

Sonofabitch, he tricked me.

The torc
squeezed,
a circle of pain around my throat. As my lungs burned, my trembling knees broke. I slid down. Hands were on me, an arm strong around my shoulders, keeping me off the floor. I slipped sideways and saw Daniel, his face nearly covered with black specks, right next to me. His mouth moved, not making any sound.

The world blinked away to blackness.

The torc opened with a sigh, loosening its grip, settling to rest easy at the base of my throat.

Air, the sweetest air I had ever tasted, rushed into my lungs. The pitch across my eyes cracked, splitting open as I sucked in oxygen, dragging it into my lungs, clawing for it. The first sound I heard other than my own tortured gasps for air was Daniel calling my name, voice pitchy with panic.

The second was Ashtoreth's twittering giggle.

“Are you okay?” Daniel held me, keeping me upright.

The Whore Goddess cackled. “She is fine, cultist. The torc was merely becoming familiar with its wearer.”

I pushed away, out of Daniel's arms, standing on wobbly legs. Fire pulsed in my throat but, dammit, I could stand. I pointed a finger at Ashtoreth. “You lied to me.”

The Whore Goddess pouted. “I did not, child. You are not harmed.”

“It feels like my larynx has been cut in two.”

“Hurt is not harmed. You should learn the difference if you are going to play in the arena of gods.”

My throat hurt as I said, “Fuck you.”

Bitch.

I turned to the Man in Black. “Are we done here? I'm sick of this place.”

Nyarlathotep turned dark eyes to Ashtoreth. “The talisman will let her find my kind on this plane of existence?”

“More than that, Lord of Nightmares. I have given your Acolyte the ability to not only find what you seek, but to take you there as well. All she has to do is use the Sight you gave her, and the talisman will carry you to the nearest of your kind.”

“That is very generous of you, little goddess.” His eyes narrowed, red right hand slipping from the folds of his coat. “
Too
generous, I think.”

Terror crawled across Ashtoreth's face at the sight of Nyarlathotep's hand. She cowered, pushing herself farther into the hollow of the soiled mattress, her wide eyes pinned on that red right hand. “It is not a trick, Dark Lord! It is how my power works! Find and fetch are part and parcel of desire!”

The Man in Black took a step toward the bed, his red right hand rising slowly. A black energy crackled along the nerves laced over the raw, skinless flesh.

I grabbed his arm without thinking. My hand touched his coat and it rippled under my fingers, curling around them. An alien melody sang softly in my mind. Nyarlathotep turned, scowling, as I jerked my hand away, cutting off the song.

“We have what we came here for. She seems harmless, so let's go find the bad guys.”

“Do not attempt to bar my action again, Acolyte. It will not end well next time.”

I bristled. “Thanks to you, my night can't really get any worse.”

A smile cut across the Dark Man's face. “We shall see about that, Charlotte Tristan Moore.” His red right hand disappeared in the folds of his coat. “Let us be about our bloody-handed business tonight.” With that he turned, striding toward the door.

Daniel looked at me for a long moment before turning and following. I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, and started after them.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

“Child, wait,” Ashtoreth called, making me turn at the doorway. Her mouth opened in a black-gummed smile. “Thank you for your mercy.”

My words were as harsh as my voice. “It wasn't mercy for you, bitch. I just didn't want to see whatever he planned to do.”

“Still, I owe you my gratitude.” The Whore Goddess rose, kneeling on the unclean mattress. She stretched out her arms. The wound gaped open, starless void yawning wide. “Would you like to fuck my wound?”